KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 27
The Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority has filed charge-sheet against three former ward secretaries at the Special Court for embezzling social security allowance fund.
The anti-graft body has sued Mohan Prasad Acharya, Januka Shrestha and Pawan Shrestha, former secretaries of Ward No 4, Diktel Rupakot Majhuwagadhi Municipality. According to the CIAA, they had faked cash receipts by 'distributing social security allowance to the deceased and migrated beneficiaries' for the fiscal years 2017-18 and 2018-19. The former ward secretaries were also found to have set aside allowance amounts for unlisted persons on the pretext of distribution. Mohan Prasad, Jamuna and Pawan had embezzled Rs 55,200, Rs 177,600 and Rs 35,200 respectively.
CIAA Spokesperson Shyam Prasad Bhandari said the trio had faked 46 beneficiaries of social security allowance for embezzlement of the amount. They have been charged under the Prevention of Corruption Act-2002. The CIAA has sought the recovery of the embezzled amount along with jail sentence and a fine equivalent to the amount in question.
According to the annual report (2020-21) of the Office of the Auditor General, as many as 216 local levels had distributed around Rs 65.4 million as social security allowance by issuing two or more ID cards to the same beneficiaries without removing the names of deceased persons from the records. It indicates that the local levels in question did little precious to avoid duplication in distribution of social security allowance. Several beneficiaries are found to be possessing two or more ID cards and receiving dual payment of allowance.
The local levels had also paid the amount to the bank accounts of beneficiaries who have already died. It is the duty and responsibility of the local levels to keep the records of beneficiaries up-to-date.
The OAG had urged the authorities concerned to make these officials accountable for loss of state funds and recover the amount from them. Similarly, 127 local levels credited around Rs 587 million to the dormant bank accounts of beneficiaries. Each level has to receive details of dormant accounts from the banks concerned twice a year (within mid-July and mid-January) in line with the Social Security Allowance Distribution Procedure, 2020. However, 127 local levels did not update the status of bank accounts of the beneficiaries and credited the amount to dormant accounts.
Likewise, despite repeated instructions related to mandatory provision for distribution of social security allowance to beneficiaries only through banking channel, some local units have not complied. There are reports of theft, robbery and loss of social security amount due to distribution of cash in some local levels.
As per the Department of National ID and Civil Registration, there are around 3,465,427 listed beneficiaries of social security allowance.
A version of this article appears in the print on December 28, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
